diver858

Similar situation here; with travel already planned this year, I will need another 3k miles to reach 2MM in 2014. Call me naive, but I fully expect AA to allow LT PLT - or whatever follows - free access to preferred / MCE seating, priority boarding, free baggage, will take a MR if necessary to push be over the top. I spent a few $1ks in 2013 to get to this point, earn EXP for the first time this year, still consider it a good investment.

GUWonder

I doubt they will kill off the lifetime elite status for 2MM. I have little to no doubt that the benefits of lifetime Platinum will be changed (and probably not to my liking). I personally see no rush to rush for 2MM, but then again I'm well beyond that.

heyeaglefn

It all depends on the cost to get to 2MM. I wouldn't put any significant money into getting there if you aren't going to be doing that flying anyway.

relangford

OTOH, if you make 2 MM before the new program, you might be in a better position with respect to lifetime status. AA could always change LT PLAT, especially if they go with four tiers rather than three. However, I suspect 1 MM = LT GLD; 2 MM = LT PLT; 3 MM = new level; and 4 MM = LT EXP (or whatever AA will call them).

Superguy

I don't think when you cross the threshold matters. UA already screwed the longtime MMs with its changes with no grandfathering. With the direction AA's going at the moment, I can easily see them screwing the AA/US MMs too.

NiceLanding

In all fairness, UA did grandfather lifetime club status for those who had already reached 2MM as well as some who were close to it. Unfortunately I ended up a little too far away myself, but for those who could have made it with some extra effort, it might have been worth doing so.

Superguy

I think they did because in reality, a lifetime club membership costs them little in the long run - maybe some snacks and some well drinks - and has the potential to add some revenue if people want a real adult beverage.

Upgrades and such - well, those are real money to UA. And having to give those out in perpetuity can get quite expensive.

Had the club been worth more to them, I doubt they would have kept it.

NiceLanding

Maybe, but if that were the case, why eliminate the lifetime club membership in the first place? Losing the ability to earn it was one of the factors that led me to give up on UA after 1.9 million miles.

Superguy

I'm thinking the penny-wise pound-foolish bit. Getting rid of it would have been hard for the current 2MMs and even if it didn't cost much, it was still a cost. SMI/J only cares about eliminating cost - even if only to save a few pennies.

I agree that it there probably aren't that many people pushing 2MM so it should have remained a benefit. However, if a cost can be eliminated, much like one or two less olives in a salad or using broken nuts, Jeff has shown he'll do it.

NiceLanding

IMO a lot of the cuts made in the benefits for the pmUA MMs were a direct consequence of the poor (and rather biased) decision to transfer over all of the credit-card and other non-BIS miles from pmCO as well as their companion-matching feature, plus making a token (and ill-conceived) adjustment for pmUA fliers, which together greatly inflated the ranks of MMs at all levels. Since the pmUA MM program had the most generous benefits in the industry, something had to give.

Just like pmCO (and maybe more so), AA's MM ranks had been inflated for years by easy earnings, but stingy benefits (compared to pmUA). It's a shame AA tightened the earning requirements a few years ago without increasing benefits because for new people like me, it's no longer much of an incentive to stick with AA. Although I'm not at all optimistic that this would work in our favor, the merger with US does give them an opportunity to rebalance the whole program to better match benefits with the difficulty of earning them.

Superguy

A lot of decisions were made with a strong CO bias. Generally, anything pmUA was considered bad and ripe for the chopping block while CO's ideas generally slid on thru.

I'm far enough away from MM on any carrier that the benefits don't matter much to me. Still, I know that cuts to them will only roll down hill to further cuts for everyone, so I'm against those just as much.

Yeah, it does, but I'm not confident that it will be a "rebalancing" but more of a tilt in AA's favor. I don't know that you'll really get the incentive.

I think had they stuck to AA's program, and maybe added a 4th tier at 75k, they'd have a pretty strong program. AA's program was largely like UA's old program. I don't think US's numbers would have inflated the ranks that much due to US's size - especially at the EXP/CP ranks. Unfortunately, with gutting the bags, I think we've seen the beginning of the "changes we'll like."

I think the AA flyers have more to lose than the US flyers, but there's plenty out there that can be changed that will make no one happy. Regardless, I'm not looking forward to it. If they gut the programs less than I had hoped, I'll consider it a small win.

NiceLanding

For AA, I think it was a huge change to start counting only BIS miles towards MM status, rather than all miles earned, and will mean for years to come that any increased benefits aimed at gaining long-term loyalty of newer members will go disproportionally to the lucky folks who earned lots of miles the old way. Presumably they did it that way to avoid upsetting long-time members, although it did leave them with limited upside potential. IMHO they should adjust all old miles to the new earning formula (including US miles when they combine them, which could get tricky), which would give them more room to add tiers and/or increase MM benefits without breaking the bank. They should also grandfather any lifetime status already earned for anyone who doesn't yet qualify under the new program.

rrgg

From reading TravelingBetter, I think AA simply did not know your history of BIS miles at the time. I don't think they can "adjust all old miles [pre circa 2008] to the new earning formula," if I've understood you correctly.

Edited: I think that circa 2008 date was really circa 2011.

NiceLanding

Perhaps so, but it seems surprising that the airline that invented the FFP and directly captured FF numbers from the beginning, while others shuffled paper FF coupons, wouldn't bother to hold on to such historic data. Until its recent merger, it was still possible to get a print-out from UA of every flight and other mileage transaction in your account going back to the beginning (at no charge!).

rrgg

It may seem surprising, but what I remember reading is that their old system could only look back something like 1-1.5 years at your BIS earnings. I dug up this thread if you're interested: http://www.travelingbetter.com/forum...ead.php?t=4919